Bhairava

(“terrible”) A wrathful and powerful
divine attendant of the god Shiva who is
often identified as a form of Shiva himself. According to the Shiva Purana, a
sectarian scripture, Bhairava is produced
when the god Brahma insults Shiva, and
Shiva’s rage takes concrete form as
Bhairava. After his birth, Bhairava’s first
act is to cut off one of Brahma’s heads—
the one whose mouth has uttered the
insult—thus leaving the god with four
remaining heads. Since Brahma is considered a brahmin priest, this act makes
Bhairava guilty of brahmin murder, the
most serious of the four great crimes
(mahapataka). As a sign of the enormity
of his act, Brahma’s severed head sticks
to Bhairava’s hand; as penance
(prayashchitta) Bhairava has to wander
the countryside as a beggar, displaying
Brahma’s severed head as a continual
advertisement of his crime. In his travels
Bhairava visits many pilgrimage places
(tirtha), but none of them have the
power to cleanse him from the sin of
brahmin murder. He finally obtains a
pardon in the city of Benares, at a site
named Kapalamochana (“releasing the
skull”). As soon as Bhairava bathes there,
Brahma’s head falls from his hand into
the Ganges—a sign that his crime had
been expiated.
Although often seen as Shiva’s attendant, Bhairava is important in several
different contexts. He is often portrayed
as the consort of powerful, independent
goddesses such as Durga and Kali,
although he is subordinate to them,
befitting their status as supreme deities.
Bhairava’s associations with wrath and
power have made him popular with
practitioners of the secret ritual tradition
known as tantra, who may invoke him
for magic powers or other favors.
Bhairava is also popular with the Naga
class of the Dashanami Sanyasis, ascetic
devotees (bhakta) of Shiva who formerly
made their living as traders and mercenary soldiers; this group sees him as a
divine image of themselves. Some of the
ambivalence associated with Bhairava is
symbolized by his animal vehicle, the
dog, which in Hindu culture is almost
invariably a scavenger and considered
highly impure.